Check and (First) Mate
by Signy1
Summary: Chess is the game of kings. A thinking man's game. A battle of wits; warfare writ small. The Professor gets a bit more than he bargained for when he undertakes to teach the rudiments of his favorite game... to Gilligan.


The Professor sat sullenly down at the communal table and began setting up the chessboard, mostly for lack of anything better to do. And for lack of an opponent, he was going to commit the supreme inefficiency of playing both sides. He had no intention of playing Mr. Howell again; the man cheated to win and whined when he lost, and the Professor had no patience for that sort of thing just then. Even playing himself would be more pleasurable, and he felt badly in need of a distraction from three straight days of unsuccessful experimentation.

He was just considering the pros and cons of a gambit involving a knight, two pawns, and a bishop when Gilligan walked by. If, that is, one felt charitable enough to reclassify 'tripping over an untied shoelace and falling into the table' as 'walking by.' The chess pieces went flying in every direction.

"Oh, boy," Gilligan said, as he scrambled to collect the pieces. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to wreck your game."

"It doesn't matter," the Professor said, as patiently as he could manage, quashing, with difficulty, a sudden impulse to begin wearing a hat. "I was merely using it as a diversion from the fruitless endeavors of the last few days."

"You want fruit? I could go get you some," Gilligan offered. "What kind did you want? I could get you some bananas, or I think there are still some grapefruits that look ripe, or—"

"Gilligan," he began.

"Or maybe some mangos? Those are usually pretty good. Or—"

"Gilligan! I don't want any fruit. I simply meant that my most recent experiments have been unsuccessful."

"Oh." He piled the chess pieces on the table. "Well, I'm sure that your next experiments will be better. You're the smartest guy I ever met."

The Professor smiled ruefully. "Thank you for that, but I don't entirely share your certainty." He began resetting the board, then looked up. Any port in a storm, as it were. "Gilligan, do you play chess?"

"Who, me? Nope. I know how to play checkers, but that's it. Chess is for smart people."

"Nonsense," the Professor said. "Anyone can learn to play chess. Sit down. I'll show you."

Gilligan didn't look convinced, but he sat down, and looked warily at the board.

"Now. As you can see, there are several different kinds of pieces. Each of them has a different way of moving around the board. This one is called a rook. It can go as many spaces as you like in any direction, but only in a straight line."

"Like the Skipper," Gilligan said, grinning. "He charges right into things, head on." He fingered the piece. "It's even shaped like him."

The Professor chuckled. "I suppose so. The one next to it, the one that looks like a horse, is the knight. Now, the knight moves like this. An 'L' shape; two spaces forward, and one to the side, in any direction. The knight is the only piece that can jump over the other pieces."

"That one's like you, then. You're always saying things that are over my head." He moved his knight experimentally, two squares up, and one to the side. "Right, so I've got the two Skipper pieces, and the two Professors. What's this one?"

"That's the bishop. It also goes as many spaces as you like, but only on the diagonal." Blank look. "Catty-corner," he translated. "Like this."

"Huh. That'd have to be Ginger, I guess. She doesn't go after anything in a straight line, it's always sort of catty-corner and coming at you when you don't expect it."

The Professor wasn't touching that one. "These two are the king and queen. The object of the game is to capture the other person's king, so it's a very important piece, but it doesn't do very much. It only moves one space in any direction. The other pieces protect it."

They looked at each other, the same thought occurring to them both, and both smirked a bit. "Okay, the king's real important, but it doesn't do any work. So that's the Howells," Gilligan said cheerfully. "What does the queen do?"

"Everything," the Professor said. "It moves in any direction, forward or back, as far as you want. The queen is the most powerful piece in the game."

"Mary Ann, then. She knows how to do all kinds of things." He nodded decisively.

"If you like," the Professor said, suppressing a smile. "Now, these are the pawns. They're the least powerful of the pieces. They can't go backward or to either side; they can only move one space straight ahead, except to capture another piece, when they move one space diag—catty-corner. Like so." He demonstrated.

Gilligan picked one up, looked at it. "So that one's like me, I guess. The one that can't do much."

Something twisted painfully in the Professor's chest at that. "Don't be so quick to discount the importance of the pawns. No game can be won if they aren't skillfully utilized. And the pawn does have one ability that none of the others possess," he said. "If you can get a pawn all the way across the board, it becomes whatever piece you desire. It's the same principle as a king in checkers. The pawn, with a little effort, can be the most powerful piece of all."

Gilligan looked up from the board, a bit surprised at the intensity of that last sentence.

The Professor, no less surprised at himself, cleared his throat and put the pieces back in order. "So. Those are the different pieces. Would you care to try a game?"

Gilligan put his pawn back where it belonged. "Okay, Professor. Who goes first?"

Some time later, when Mary Ann came to reclaim the table for supper, she was startled to hear Gilligan saying, triumphantly, "Ha! Okay, Ginger takes your Skipper."

The Professor, no less triumphant, said, "And _that's_ what we call a sacrifice. I let you take that Skipper so as to clear the way for Mary Ann, who takes your Professor. And… check!"

Intrigued, she drew a bit closer. The two men were bent over a chess board, both so intent on their game that they didn't notice her. She watched the moves and countermoves, delighted by the mock battle the islanders were apparently waging. Skippers and Mary Anns and Gingers and Professors attacked each other with no mercy asked or offered, Gilligans were captured with startling frequency, the Howells slipped smoothly in and out of danger. Until finally—

"Um. Okay, this Gilligan goes _here,_ and turns into a Mary Ann… and, um, that's checkmate," Gilligan said. "I think. Is that right?"

The Professor, genuinely startled, stared at the far end of the board, where a pawn had made its surreptitious way. The Howells were, unmistakably, caught in a trap he had somehow failed to notice. A slow, pleased smile spread over his face, and he tipped over his king. "Indeed it is, Gilligan," he said. "Well done! I told you, never underestimate the value of your pawns. They may seem like the least powerful pieces on the board… but you'll never win a game without them."

Mary Ann suspected that he wasn't talking about chess anymore.


End file.
